Ontario parties vow to boost student aid

Three of Ontario’s four main parties are pledging to reverse cuts to the province’s student assistance program, but they’ve all attached different price tags to the promise.

The program that converted many student loans to grants and made tuition free for some students was turfed by the Progressive Conservatives in 2018. The auditor general predicted the cost of grants issued through the Ontario Student Assistance Program would reach $2 billion annually by 2020, far greater than anticipated by the former Liberal government, which introduced the scheme.

The Green Party is promising $1 billion annually to reverse the cuts and the Liberals are pledging $600 million a year, while the NDP have budgeted $771 million next year and $834 million the year after that, in addition to just over $40 million annually to convert student loans into grants.

“We will be reintroducing an OSAP program that is as generous for middleand low- income Ontario students as that existed prior to 2018, prior to Doug Ford reversing the progress that we had begun to make for more accessible and more affordable post secondary,” Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said Monday.

The New Democrats, who are prepared to spend a couple hundred million dollars more per year on the pledge, said they want Ontarians to graduate debt-free.

The Greens, who are promising to spend the most money on student grants, said Ontario’s tuition rates are too high.

The Progressive Conservatives, meanwhile, don’t plan to reverse the cuts they made.